Voter Fraud: A Massive, Anti-Democratic Deception

John Wasik
, ContributorOpinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

I knew something wrong was afoot when my wife reported that a 90-year-old woman had to be turned away from voting early at our local polling place. Her crime: She didn't have a driver's license. Why would she? She wasn't able to drive anymore.

As the embarrassed election judge fumbled for a solution as the woman sobbed -- this was the first election she missed in her life (and might be her last) -- it struck me at how regressive this whole idea of voter policing has become.

Believe me, I know plenty about voting fraud. I'm from Chicago, where countless voters were registered in graveyards and perhaps aided in the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960 thanks to Richard J. Daley's political machine. He managed to put a lot of zombies in polling places -- even more than were in political office at the time.

But large-scale voter fraud is virtually non-existent today. Yet the efforts to root it out recall the horrid Jim Crow era. The former "party of Lincoln" has been most active in this fraudulent crusade. It's mostly prevented people of color and older folks from voting. Could it be that they'd largely vote for Democrats?

Shades of 2000 and 2004 when somehow voting machines weren't delivered to African-American precincts in Ohio and Florida or unforeseen glitches prevented their ballots from counting. It's not that the disenfranchised voters weren't properly registered -- by and large they were. But a systematic campaign to keep them from voting was in place. It's been documented by several news organizations, most notably the Miami Herald.

Let's say that for the sake of argument that GOP activists are rightly concerned about the "wrong" people somehow getting access to a ballot. Is this a prevalent activity that needs to be stopped at all costs?

One of the best studies on the subject was conducted by Justin Levitt of the New York UniversityLaw School. Its conclusion is simple: allegations of widespread voter fraud are greatly exaggerated.

"Many of the claims of voter fraud amount to a great deal of smoke without much fire...Most allegations of fraud turn out to be baseless—and that of the few allegations remaining, most reveal election irregularities and other forms of election misconduct, rather than fraud by individual voters. The type of individual voter fraud supposedly targeted by recent legislative efforts—especially efforts to require certain forms of voter ID—simply does not exist."

The creation and propagation of the voter fraud myth, which has gained huge currency in the GOP over the past decade, has been championed by Hans von Spakovsky, a lawyer who is also a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation. He was recently profiled by Jane Mayer in a New Yorker piece. His work has spawned numerous new rules in states like Florida and Ohio that not only promote strict voter ID laws, but end up restricting voting in minority-dominated areas. Many of these restrictions are likely violations of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark law that Lyndon Johnson signed in 1965 to end the Jim Crow era, well, until democracy foes like Spakovsky came on the scene.

If anything, voting should be as simple as going to an ATM. You can do it any time and at virtually any place. You should be do it through the mail, email or by texting. If you can buy a product from amazon.com with one click, you certainly should be able to vote with 21st-century ease.

Not only can voting be made easier, security concerns are easily addressed. If trillions of dollars can be sent around the world every day with no one stealing it, there are plenty of encryption solutions available to prevent voter fraud, which isn't a problem anyway. Here are some starters for the post-election discussion:

* Make voter registration seamless. It would be tied into your Social Security number, although no one would have to know that. On your 18th birthday, you're registered automatically, no matter where you are. A central database would have this information.

* Although there have been great strides in absentee and early voting, there shouldn't be just one election day. The world's largest democracy -- India -- takes weeks to vote. Spread it out and shorten the election season while you're at it.

* You can tie in voter identification to any number of biometrics such as fingerprints or retinal scans. While that may prove too expensive to implement now, it's something to consider when the technology gets cheaper. DNA sample chips, anyone?

* Make voting mandatory. Once you have universal registration, do what the Aussies do and require people to vote. I know that sounds un-American, but it will get more people into the polling place and more of the electorate involved.

* Don't link voting to polling places. People are mobile. They should be able to vote anywhere -- as long as their voting information is in a master database that can be accessed by voting officials. Why do we have to require that older, disabled or immobile people be wheeled into a polling place? Why can't they vote at home?

Most importantly, big money needs to be removed from the political campaign process. A constitutional amendment banning all PAC, union and corporate money needs to be in place. Citizens United, which has spawned more than $2 billion in spending during this election cycle, has to go.

How would elections be financed? Make the airwaves free. Most people forget that the electro-magnetic spectrum is owned by everyone. Even the Internet is a public commons developed by public money.

And for God's sake, can we please shorten the political season? Six months is fine; three months is even better.

Even as the election season comes to a close, our mission in a democracy is clear. If we want to keep it, we need to protect the rights of all of our citizens. That means fair enforcement of voting rights, universal access to ballots (electronic or paper) and getting the greatest number of people involved in the process without the corruption of big-monied interests.

"Out of the many, one" is our motto (e pluribus unum). It still makes sense, but many people still have to rise up and defend it.